Former FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried used his Twitter account and other outlets to spread “false rumors” about Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao, according to Patrick Hillmann.
In a Twitter thread on April 21, Hillmann – Binance’s chief strategy officer – said that Bankman-Fried used his influence to label Zhano as an “evil Chinese” through “false rumors” to perpetuate his alleged scams on FTX. Before and after FTX filed for bankruptcy in November 2022, Sam Bankman-Fried and Changpeng Zhao’s public relationship was often hostile, even though the two exchanges had financial ties.
“Sam denigrating Zhao was a regular thing for us,” Hillman said. “He had nothing to do with the decision to sell the company’s worthless FTTs.”
A great read by @WilliamCohan at @PuckNews. One thing they missed, Sam was CONSTANTLY spreading fake rumors about @cz_binance, because shading him as an “evil Chinese” was critical to his scam. You can’t pretend to be Luke Skywalker without Darth Vader.https://t.co/oi9JxsqPyz
—Patrick Hillmann (@PRHillmann) April 20, 2023
In November, Zhao announced plans for the exchange to liquidate its FTX Token (FTT) holdings ahead of FTX’s bankruptcy, hinting that Binance would consider buying the competitor. When the deal fell apart and FTX filed for Chapter 11 Bankruptcy Protection, the two top industry executives began attacking each other on social media, with Zhao calling Bankman-Fried a “swindler” and the former CEO from FTX suggesting that Zhao lied about the takeover talks.
Zhao continues to lead Binance as CEO and regularly posts messages on social media in between about changes in the regulatory environment for cryptocurrency companies. Bankman-Fried, on the other hand, faces 13 federal charges, including those related to bribery and wire fraud, and has only limited access to the Internet as part of his bail conditions.
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